Owen Lassiter
Owen Lassiter (1925-2004) was a Republican two-term former President of the United States from California. Biography Lassiter died of post-operative complications from a hip replacement, a procedure which worsened his existing infirmity. White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler, unhappily saddled with writing a Lassiter eulogy for Bartlet, privately derided those left from Lassiter's former administration as the "GOP Geriatric Brigade," lamenting: "These great and terrible old men ... spent the better part of the late 20th century trying to play God in other countries. And the regimes they anointed are the ones that haunt us today." Libby Lassiter, the former president's widow, told Bartlet that her husband spent his last years making pilgrimages to battlefields all over the world, wherever Americans spilled blood. Almost obsessively, Lassiter collected soil from those sites, which he in turn placed in glass jars and displayed on the shelves of an Oval Office replica at his presidential library. Lassiter had made the museum his home and a hospital bed was eventually moved into the complex. In his final months, Lassiter placed rambling telephone calls to Bartlet. When Bartlet stopped taking the calls, Lassiter turned to paper and pen. In what was presumably one of his final acts, Lassiter wrote a letter to his successor, entitled: The Need for an American Empire America: A country founded by refugees. Populated by immigrants. Made strong by the sweat of the tired, the poor, until it become America. An idea, a flame, a city on a hill. A vision for all who believe in liberty. An experiment in democracy. But now Islamic men seek to douse the flame, douse the ideal, to return to a different age entirely, to return to the age from which our forefathers fled. Fundamentalism is a vision, an ideal as rigid as democracy is flexible and we cannot let it overcome what we have worked so hard to learn. Jed-Go see Lincoln and lisen Lassiter apparently planned a low-key funeral before his death, opting for a modest service at his presidential library rather than a pomp and ceremonious event at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Though he had a state funeral, Lassiter did not lie in state. In addition to his former cabinet officers and aides, Lassiter's funeral was attended by President Bartlet, former President D. Wire Newman and former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Acting President Glen Allen Walken. Walken, who apparently regarded Lassiter as something of a mentor or personal hero, reminisced about how he and Lassiter were forced to improvise when they couldn't find a bathroom while on a trip to the People's Republic of China. It was not clear whether Lassiter was president at the time. (The Stormy Present) Background He may have been based on Ronald Reagan. Lassiter was born in southern California in 1925. He served in California State Senate from 1959-1965, and in 1964 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served two terms. In 1968 Congressman Lassiter defeated incumbent Senator Thomas Kuchel and California Superintendent of Public Instruction Max Rafferty in the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate. That November he defeated State Controller Alan Cranston, he was re-elected in 1974 and served from 1969-1979. In 1978 he was elected Governor of California. In 1979 the state constitution was changed for governors to be elected in 1980, 1984 and so on. So in 1980 he was re-elected, and won a third term in 1984 making his total service as governor 10 years from 1979-1989. Lassiter first ran for president in 1986 but lost because of a late start to incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush, Bush would be defeated that November by Democratic Alabama Governor Dwight W. Newman. Lassiter ran as the Republican frontrunner in 1990 and won the nomination over Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Ohio Governor David D. Eisenhower and others. Lassiter chose Eisenhower for his running mate and defeated President Newman that November. Lassiter was re-elected in 1994 defeating former Vice President Michael Dukakis by a 49-1 state landslide. Because the series established that a Republican had occupied the West Wing prior to the Bartlet administration, some fans have speculated that Lassiter was Bartlet's immediate predecessor. If accurate, that would mean Lassiter would've been first elected president in 1990 and won a second term in 1994 (the West Wing election cycle is off by two years). If that's corret, Lassiter would have been president from January 20, 1991-January 20, 1999. However, since the episode and subsequent episodes never revealed when the Lassiter era took place, this notion cannot be considered canon. Leo McGarry, later the White House Chief of Staff under Bartlet and the 2006 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, would have served Lassiter as a token Democrat in the cabinet post of United States Secretary of Labor in the mid-1990s. Given The West Wing's references to real life events in the 1990s, Lassiter would have been president during the Gulf War, sent troops to take part in operations in Bosnia, and during his final year in office help broker the Good Friday Agreement. And after the 1998 election, he would have sent peacekepping troops to the Phillippines much to Bartlet's initial dismay. In 1992, he would have appointed Bernard Dahl as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and this appointment helped to create the lagest growth and expansion of the U.S. economy in history. While his frail hands are observed at the start of the episode writing a letter to President Josiah Bartlet, the camera never showed the actor's face clearly. Indeed, the only image of the former president appeared to have been an artist's rendering of the man displayed on decorative banners outside his presidential library in southern California. The scenes at the Lassiter Presidential Library and Museum were filmed at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Political History * 1959-1965: Member of the California State Senate * 1965-1969: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives * 1969-1979: U.S. Senator from California * 1979-1989: Governor of California * 1991-1999: President of the United States References Lassiter, Owen Lassiter, Owen